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Created: second third of 16th century Material, technology: oil, canvas Size: 93.5 x 64 cm Description: Christ is sitting by a table covered with a white cloth amidst green hills. In front of him is a patin and chalice with the altar-bread. St Peter is kneeling at one end of the table, St Paul is standing at the other, with St Francis of Assisi in grey habit behind him. A young man in secular clothes is on his knees before him, offering a heart pierced with arrows to his mother (?) squatting next to him. The pierced heart is St Augustine’s attribute but depicting St Monica in secular clothes is unusual. In the foreground is a crowd including St Tomas Aquinas writing the hymn of the eucharist. There is a group of pilgrims in the landscape behind the terrace. Back in the fields peasants are ploughing, still farther a secular banquet is held. Christ’s parable about the festive supper (Lk 14, 15-24) is about those working in the fields and the beggars taking their place. This parable is extremely rarely represented in art. The unique iconography - the Lord’s banquet - a so-far unknown relic of religious art in Venetian renaissance, informs posterity that the religious practice of lay communities in the sphere of attraction of the town created a new iconography deviating from the canon at several points. |  |
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